1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for epitaxially providing a layer of semiconductor material on a flat side of a substrate, which device comprises a sliding mechanism which has a reservoir holder with at least one reservoir open on its lower side, a slider closing the lower side of the reservoir holder and having at least one aperture to deposit melt from a reservoir of the reservoir holder, which device furthermore comprises a substrate holder in which at least one recess is provided to receive a substrate.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,965. In this known device a defined quantity of melt is deposited from the comparatively large reservoir into the aperture in the slider and an epitaxial layer is grown on the substrate present below the aperture. For the reproducible provision of a layer on a subsequent substrate, a fresh quantity of melt from the reservoir is used. First, however, the used quantity of melt present in the aperture of the slider must be removed. For that purpose, in the known device a number of recesses are present in the substrate holder in which the used melt can be deposited. This known device suffers from disadvantages. The recesses for depositing the melt in the substrate holder have for their result that the dimensions of the sliding mechanism become comparatively large. Since such a recess is present on either side of a location for a substrate, the substrate must already be present below the aperture in the slider when said aperture is filled with melt from the reservoir. The process of growing a layer on the substrate begins immediately. When thick layers are provided, as in the known device, this is still acceptable. However, when a layer is to be provided with an accurate very small thickness, the known device is not satisfactory. The less favourable handleability of the sliding mechanism furthermore makes it difficult to provide several layers on one substrate by means of the known device.